Top 5 Instagram celebs

Kim Kardashian, Selena Gomez and Christiano Ronaldo lead the way when it comes to Instagram followers.

Aussie influencers are being paid to promote alcohol to their fans.Source:istock

Aussie celebrities and influencers are spruiking alcohol brands in exchange for cash, but many of them fail to disclose the deal to their fans, health experts have warned.

An investigation of the nation’s top 70 Instagram celebrities, conducted by Victoria’s Health Promotion Foundation, has found 73 per cent of the most popular social media stars have featured alcoholic drinks in their posts in the past 12 months.

Despite this, only 26 per cent of them revealed they were being paid by alcohol companies for the post.

They trawled through the social lives of booty queen Tammy Hembrow, who boasts 9.3 million followers, TV host Brooke Hogan and even lifestyle bloggers like Rachel Lea who has 56k followers.

Not all influencers on the long list promoted alcohol, but some of those who did were found to be using “underhand” tactics adopted by the alcohol industry, VicHealth found.

The most popular types of alcohol shared by influencers include cocktails, wine and champagne.

The study also found that, while Instagram does offer a “paid partnership” feature, people can use to preserve their accountability, many do not.

Instead, they either mention nothing, or sneak in hashtags — which are rarely noticeable — such as #collab, #ad, #spon, #partner or #sponsored.

VicHealth Acting CEO Lyn Roberts likened the alcohol industry’s “underhanded” strategy on social media to large tobacco companies, who would historically use high profile celebrities and Hollywood stars to glamorise their products.

“What’s most concerning is that influencers and brands can get away with not disclosing paid content, making it really hard for young people to discern when they’re being sold an ad,” Dr Roberts said.

“We also know that young people who like or follow alcohol brands on social media are twice as likely to drink at risky levels than those who don’t.”

There are currently no laws or regulations that insist influencers disclose their own sponsorship deals.

To tackle this, VicHealth has launched a five week competition encouraging young people to “call out tactics used by the alcohol industry to encourage them to buy their products”.